About

Vampire Hunters

$565,944

pledged of $40,000 goal

3,785

backers

The Order prevailed once. Quiet for so long, the Night is coming again. Can The Order regain its former strength and push back the tide of evil?

Vampire Hunters is a co-operative miniature-based board game for 1-4 players, expandable to 5-6 players. It brings the dark imagery of Vampire lore to your tabletop, as you play a newly recruited Vampire Hunter. Thrown into the Vampire den with a small band of comrades, use classic weapons like stakes, holy water and sunlight to destroy the creatures of the Night. Team up and make combination attacks. Craft makeshift items in the Den and buy quality equipment between Hunts. Learn new skills to take down these vile creatures.

But watch the clock: at sundown, you become the prey!

Vampire Hunters is defined by thematic, innovative and fast game mechanics that guarantee a unique and fun gaming experience. Sundown and the Awakening completely change the dynamics of the game. Many optional game modes ensure the game will always be fresh.

Hello new Hunters. There is a lot of catching up to do! Starting with the front page, you’ll find an overview of the game, links to the beta rule book, how to play, game play and review videos and a list of stretch goals.

Please look at the two pledge levels carefully and select the one that is best for you. If it helps, Slayer is the best value sweet spot.

The Optional Buy banners are all on the front page too. Some, like dice, enhance the game without adding game play. Others, like the Nyx and Brith miniatures give you new options in the game. They are all optional and Vampire Hunters is a great game without them. None are required to play VH.

As well as all the information on the front page, there are many important updates. Here are summaries and links to help you find the information you need.

We will have a flexible Pledge Manager after the project closes. There are several questions about it in
the FAQ and there is more information in an update.

Vampire Hunters is a 1-4 Player game. We have an Optional Buy that extends VH to a 1-6 Player game. This expansion adds a great deal of material and is showcased in this update.

There are several updates with details of game play. Optional Turned Hunter rules are described here and an alternative to co-op play, Competitive Mode, is described here.

We also have an in-depth look at the Hunts and Campaigns and the Final Battle. There are 12 Hunts linked into 2 Campaigns in Vampire Hunters and 6 Hunts with 1 more Campaign in From Blood To Dust.

We had a multi-part Stretch Goal to give all backers a complete miniature-based expansion, Swarms. You can read about the Mist, Bats and Rats here.

We have had two updates where you can suggest ideas for the game: Weapons and Special Abilities. Have some fun and get your name in the rulebook!

If you have more questions, check the FAQ and ask our backers. They are incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

Since the dawn of time, Day has given us life, but Night gives us something else entirely…

Lost in History

These secretive and foul creatures first crept into the world centuries ago. Their lust for blood was unappeasable as they spread their trail of death. People called them the Night.

Churches around the world trained small bands of knights and monks to combat this evil. The Order grew from one such band, with Hunters passing their agile and deadly skills from generation to generation, always keeping the faith. Even when the Night creatures gained ascendancy, the Hunters were strong of mind and did not buckle. For hundreds of years, they fought until the creatures became fewer and then vanished completely. Some believed it was the final victory; others said it was just a much needed rest before the Night returned.

But there was safety for now. Over the years, the memory of The Order and its brave men and women began to fade, becoming tales of Vampires for scaring naughty children.

The Return

Peace can only last so long, the Night is back again, a malevolent force spreading through the empty and unwatched backwaters of the globe. The Elders are reviving the Night creatures and Vampires are adding victims to the body count … or to their ranks.

Vague memories of The Order exist in the memories of a few descendants. Can The Order regain its former strength and push back the tide of evil?

At its heart, Vampire Hunters is a thematic 1-4 player co-operative game. A second game mode and optional rules can be combined to enhance and customise your experience! Make Vampire Hunters the perfect game for your tabletop group.

Co-operative Mode: You play as the team of Hunters and the Vampires are controlled by the game’s activation cards. There are no rule changes for solo play, just choose how many Hunters you want to control.

Competitive Mode: There is one change here, a scoring system to find the best Hunter. Rate your Hunters to see who is pulling the most weight!

Campaigns: Play stand alone or link your Hunts in an extended campaign. Manage the team’s abilities and equipment as you get ready to defeat the Vampire Lord.

Night is a core theme in Vampire lore and has a profound effect on Vampire Hunters. Hunters enter the Den during the Day, when Vampires are sleeping. Hunters move freely and attack at an advantage. It’s best to be quiet, one wrong move and you can wake up a room full of Vampires! But round by round time ticks on until sundown and The Awakening. All Vampires are immediately revealed, they all wake up and all doors are opened. Some Vampires even have better stats at night! Get ready for a blood bath!

The Sun is a powerful ally! Burn vampires during the day by tearing down the boarded up windows. All Vampires in the room will be scorched to death!

Or harpoon a creature on the Extractor and call Pete to drag the Vampire outside.

If you’re a Vampire Hunter, you know you’re going to be attacking Vampires! Rules for attacking are fast and furious. Make one unopposed roll, you’ll be hunting Vampires, not hunting for dice and tables. But there are many variations, one time use weapons, fragile weapons crafted on the fly, area of effect weapons, noisy weapons, so ‘fast and furious’ does not mean dull and repetitive. Vampires attack using the same system, so there’s just one system to learn.

Is that Vampire too tough for you to take down alone? Team up in a combination attack for extra damage … but watch out! If you don’t destroy the Vampire, you’ll take a beating.

We have optional rules for playing as a Turned Hunter. You start playing normally as Hunters, but instead of being unconscious on the floor when your health points reach zero, you turn into a Vampire and play on. This rule can be added to both Co-operative and Competitive Modes.

As Hunts take you into more and more dangerous Dens, you’ll need better gear. You might find useful items buried in trash heaps around the Den, but it’s more effective to buy equipment and train for new special abilities between Hunts. Think carefully about what you buy. Money spent on abilities benefits you alone, but you can trade your equipment with your teammates to boost everyone as the situation changes. Plan carefully, inventory space is limited.

Hunters must maintain their focus or they will be Vampire bait. As Hunters perform various actions, their focus increases. There are little reminders on the game components to take your Focus rewards. During the game, you can spend Focus on crafting, buffing your attacks and activating special abilities or save for the downtime between Hunts and buy better equipment and training.

Click on this button to download the full BETA rule book.

Click on this button to download one of our Play Test scenarios:

We know some of you prefer videos over rule books as a way to learn about the game. We have a series of rules and game play videos that we will share before the end of the campaign. We’ve posted all our videos, three on the rules and two for game play:

“It’s a lot of fun, there’s a lot of theme to it that really gives you the feel of those old Vampire movies … I really had a good time” – Lance at Learn to Play Games

“A lot of different very thematic vampire elements in the game and it plays out mechanically as well ... you definitely want to go ahead and check this out.” – Nick Meenachan at Board Game Brawl

“Your chance to be like the Winchester brothers... or the Frog brothers (The Lost Boys)." – bARRY dOUBLET

”While playing Vampire Hunters, I did not expect to discover so many features that really make this stand out from the other Dungeon Crawlers out there.” – Geek.Pizza

“... would I be stumping up the readies and paying to take this game home with me? The answer is yes, this game would be in a bag and in the boot before you can say "I miss Buffy" – Steve Tudor at polyhedron collider

Full details of our social stretch goals are in update #6, click here.

In order to be fair to all our backers, we will charge actual shipping costs region by region once we are closer to shipping the game.

We have already approached shipping companies and have some estimates, but these are subject to change:

USA: $10 - $15.

EU: $15 - $20.

Canada: $15 - $20.

Australia: $10 - $15.

Hong Kong: $10 - $15.

China: $15 - $20.

Most other countries in Asia: $30.

Please contact us if your specific country is not listed.

We have customs friendly local shipping in USA, EU, Canada and Australia. We will look for the same arrangement in all locations where we have a significant number of backers.

Dark Gate Games is a new and vibrant company, determined to bring many fun and exciting games to gamers’ tables. Filippo Chirico and Andrea Roccella founded DGG in 2015, with Filippo focused on game design and Andrea running the business.

Although we are based in New York, we are the epitome of a modern distributed company with collaborators in USA, Canada, Italy, Germany, Moldova, Morocco, China and beyond.

Filippo Chirico leads the core Vampire Hunters team of 5 people. This may be the first time we have worked together, but we are experienced. Combined, we have worked for 23 years in the games industry and our names are in over 35 published rulebooks, with many more on the way.

And in our art department, Alexei Popovici is supplying us with one breathtaking sculpt after another.

Springing from his childhood love of vampires, Vampire Hunters has been on the tabletop for more than 2 years now, with several rules iterations and 100s of test games.

With crowd funding, gamers can turn game concepts into reality. We love your enthusiasm and your ideas. It’s been essential to keep us going through the game design process. But we need your support on Kickstarter to overcome the huge production costs for a quality miniature-based board game.

You have had every confidence in us. Now it’s our turn to say we have every confidence in you! Help us put Vampire Hunters on your tabletop in 2017!

By backing on Kickstarter you will get your copy before it goes to retail, with many KS Exclusives, and at a discount.

Risks and challenges

We can’t deny that there are risks backing a new company. We have worked hard to mitigate as many risks as possible. Many tasks are virtually complete and we have made great contacts in the industry.

All game and most stretch goal miniatures have been sculpted. Map tile and token art is complete. All cards have templates and most of the card art is complete. The rules are stable. The Beta rulebook has been written. Translation has started.

Rules, gameplay and third party videos will soon be available. You will know exactly what game you are getting.

We have already contacted several manufacturers. Quality and level of service are just as important as cost in our selection procedure. We are also in contact with other game production companies and we are getting great support from inside the industry.

Of course, there are still unknowns. Production delays are our biggest fear. Our schedule has padding for unforeseen problems and we honestly believe we can stay on track.

Please be aware that we will perform extensive game balancing after stretch goals have been unlocked. All art, rules and character information may change during this process.